Imagine youre on your way to dinner, walking down a decently busy street during the day. Youre using your new iPhone 16 Pro for directions before, out of nowhere, a masked individual on an e-bike whips around to your side and snatches youre Desert Titanium baby and zooms off. All in seconds. This sounds like a one-off insane situation, but this is precisely what happened to Dimitar Stanimiroff last week in London, England. And hes not aloneMost recent statistics say a phone is stolen on average every 6 minutes in London, or about 64,000 annually. Its so common that the City of London Police deployed special task forces to snuff out these gangs and even had to publish a blog post explaining how to protect your mobile device in public better.Over the years, Apple has made impressive strides in implementing anti-theft measures like Activation Lock and inadvertent parts pairing rules. These features and others are meant to deter thieves and minimize situations like Stanimiroffs. Is it enough?9to5Mac Security Bite is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle,the only Apple Unified Platform. Making Apple devices work-ready and enterprise-safe is all we do. Our unique integrated approach to management and security combines state-of-the-art Apple-specific security solutions for fully automated Hardening & Compliance, Next Generation EDR, AI-powered Zero Trust, and exclusive Privilege Management with the most powerful and modern Apple MDM on the market. The result is a totally automated Apple Unified Platform currently trusted by over 45,000 organizations to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple. Stanimiroff took to LinkedIn to share his story. Despite the traumatic experience and the apparent loss of his expensive phone, the Met officer he reported the situation to said he got lucky! She explained to Stanimiroff that these criminals often attempt to run people over to snatch their phones, and many victims arent quick enough to dodge an e-bike traveling at speeds of up to 70 mph!Stanimiroff could track the iPhone 16 Pro at a few different locations using Find My before it went dark. Unfortunately, when he shared the location details with the officer, she told him that because these crimes occur so frequently, they dont have the resources to investigate them and usually close the cases the same day theyre received.With the introduction of iOS 7 in 2013, Apple introduced Activation Lock, which prevents anyone from wiping data from an iPhone without the original owners Apple ID and password. Overnight, this made Apple devices significantly less appealing to thieves. They could no longer sell full-functioning devices to local pawn shops, eBay, Craigslist, etc., for serious profit, so they pivoted to the less fruitful parts market.For years, the black market trade of iPhone parts got by unscathed. This was until around 2018 when Apple started digitally pairing the serial number of iPhone Xs battery to the serial number of the device itself, known as parts pairing. Unauthorized repair shops started noticing service warnings if the battery wasnt replaced by Apple. With the iPhone 12, this expanded to more components like the screen, cameras, and Face ID sensors.This led to significant controversy around DIY repairs. Despite Apples best efforts to fight and lobby legislation, Oregon and Colorado passed a Right to Repair bill that bans parts pairing completely. This went into effect on January 1, 2025. However, it is still allowed in the UK today.Its impossible to know what happens to every device thats snatched from its owner. But thanks to recent police raids, we know that most dont stay in London, and many end up overseas in Shenzhen, China, according to The Timesthe same place many of them are made. If criminals cant bypass any of the iPhones security features to wipe them clean, they are scrapped for parts and sold off to resellers and/or recycling plants.Apples control over iPhone repairs has created a paradox of sorts. With new Right to Repair laws popping up in places like Oregon and Colorado, Apples parts pairing policy is looking a little shaky. If more states and the EU move against the policy in favor of DIY repairs, it will be interesting to see how that could further impact this situation.More in Apple securityApps sold location data for US military and intelligence personnel serving overseasiOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 18.3.1 fix a specific security vulnerabilityAndroid users who want TikTok would be best advised to copy iPhone usersSecurity Bite: How hackers can takeover your Mac using BluetoothBritish government secretly ordered Apple to create a worldwide iCloud backdooriPhone apps found on App Store with malware that reads your screenshots for key dataAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel